Zombie Blondes Read online

  Have you ever cheered before?” Mrs. Donner asks me as I stand in front of her desk, shuffling my feet and looking for the proper place to put my hands. I stick them in my pockets but they feel uncomfortably tight and so I pull them out again. Hide them behind my back and twist the fingers of my left hand with the fingers of my right hand the same way my dad showed me to do with paper before making a fire in the fireplace and give myself small Indian burns as I think about the question of having ever cheered before.

  “Not exactly,” is the answer I settle on.

  Mrs. Donner lets her glasses slide down to the end of her nose and looks at me from above the lenses. Her eyes are like blue sparks of electricity bursting under an icy surface. If it wasn’t for their sharp color, there would be nothing about this lady that would connect her to the girls she coaches on the cheerleading squad. She has none of their perfection. Her face is lined with age and her skin has taken on the gray color of ashes that old people often get. Her dress is drab and shapeless and makes her look like a giant hen sitting on her roost. But the eyes are the same and I wonder if she was pale and thin and beautiful once, too.

  “You know we have a very high standard,” she tells me in a flat tone.

  I nod. Thinking about my own beauty and wondering if she’s saying that as a way of letting me know I’m also far from being flawless.

  She covers her mouth with the palm of her hand and taps her fingers against her cheek. The glare of the sun catches her glasses and erases her eyes. Two blank circles stare at me and I start to feel self-conscious as she tilts her head to one side and then the other trying to get a good look at every part of me. Then she asks me again if I’ve ever had any experience.

  I bite my lip and consider lying to her and telling her that I used to cheer. It wouldn’t be a complete lie. I used to cheer when I was seven years old. I’d twirl around and wave my pom-poms out of rhythm to the chant and pretend I was a ballerina when my skirt lifted into the air. But I know that’s not what she means and she’d be able to see through it. Her eyes are the kind that can pull the truth out like a magnet. So I keep my response vague like before.

  “Sort of,” I say, putting my hands back in my pockets.

  A skeptical look transforms her face and I can tell right away it’s not going to be enough.

  “Well, I did do gymnastics for two years,” saying it a little too quickly, a little too eagerly. It’s the truth, though. I just leave out the part about it having been over a year since I’ve practiced anything.

  “Gymnastics?” Mrs. Donner says and smiles patiently the way people do when they’re listening to little kids tell a story that doesn’t make any sense.

  “I know it’s not the same thing,” I admit, “but some of it is. I can learn the rest of it if you give me the chance.” The chance is all I want. All I’m asking for and nothing more. One try to show everyone I’m not what I’ve been made out to be through whispers slipping off slithering tongues.

  The tap-tapping of her fingers drumming against her chin starts over again and I start to sway at the hips. I can hear voices drifting in from the hallway as the minute hand ticks closer to class time. My stomach begins to turn over and over as Mrs. Donner considers me. Taking my hand from my pocket, I start to bite my nails. She catches me and gives a stern look. The kind of look teachers give to address any bad habit and I take my hand away from my mouth. It’s clear that nail biting certainly doesn’t go along with her high standard.

  Mrs. Donner seems happy that I’ve caught on so quickly. She smiles and the wrinkles disappear to wipe the age away from her face. “Okay, let’s see what you can do,” she finally says and I feel the knots inside me begin to loosen.

  “Thank you!” I shout, bringing my hands together as if saying a prayer. My heart races inside me like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage and I can’t stop smiling. “I won’t let you down,” I promise her and she nods to show she doesn’t expect me to.

  “See you after school, then,” she says with a reminder of where and when I’m supposed to report to face my fate. I nod and hurry past the kids who are filing into the room. Wave once over my shoulder as my reflection grows smaller in the glare of her eyeglasses.

  The hall is a dizzy maze of backpacks and blue jeans and colored lockers and dust specks that catch in the sunlight. Same as it was this morning, but somehow it looks different. Brighter. And the faces going by don’t look nearly as threatening because already something has changed. Already I’m starting over and this time whatever I become here it will be because of things I choose to do instead of stories made up about me.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice the person hurrying behind me. Not until she grabs the strap of my backpack. The surprise of it makes me gasp and stumble until I see it’s only Diana.

  “I saw you talking to Mrs. Donner,” she says. She looks as excited about it as I do. Maybe even more excited. “Does that mean you’re thinking about joining the squad?” she asks.

  “Yeah, I’m supposed to try out after school today,” I tell her and my new identity is secured by the expression on her face. I’m no longer the strange girl with rumors swirling over my head. I’m now someone who might actually be somebody and I can’t help but smile at her.

  “Wow! I can’t believe she’s really letting you try out,” Diana says, matching my pace as we walk to our next class together. “She doesn’t usually let anyone try out after the first two weeks of school.”

  “I guess I’m lucky,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, wondering why Mrs. Donner would break her own rules for me. Feeling slightly proud about it. About being an exception. Being special in the eyes of someone who values perfection.

  “You’re gonna make it, I just know it,” Diana says.

  “Thanks,” I say, wishing I were as confident as she is. I put my head down as we walk to hide how unsure I am. I don’t know why, but I feel like it would let her down if she saw.

  Diana stops me again right before we’re about to go in. She waits until I’m looking at her, until she knows I’m paying attention. “One last thing,” she says, glancing around as the hallways clear out and making sure no one is listening. “Don’t worry if the other girls give you a hard time. It’s just a test to see if you’re really cut out for it. It’s the way it always happens—you’ll do fine,” she tells me.

  A laundry list of nasty lies about me scrolls across her eyes and it’s my turn to blush a little knowing she’s heard every one of the things Morgan has said about me. But they don’t mean anything to her. I can tell by the way she smiles at me.

  I want to ask her if she knows anything else, any tricks that might help me during my trial, but our teacher steps out into the hallway and clears her throat.

  “Diana, you’re late,” she says with a hatred that seems too strong for the situation. The kind that teachers reserve for students that they’ve built up a dislike for over a period of time. Even having just met her, I’m not so surprised. I’ve already gathered that Diana likes to talk a lot, a habit that probably doesn’t stop just because class starts.

  “I’m sorry,” Diana says softly and lowers her head as she walks past the slouching figure in the doorway. Once she’s inside, she glances over her shoulder and gives me a little wink. The kind that friends give each other.

  “You’re late, too,” our teacher says, looking at me for the first time. Her voice not nearly as angry, but not exactly pleasant, either. I apologize and explain that I had to see Mrs. Donner about something.

  My teacher’s sour expression changes at the mention of Mrs. Donner’s name. She’s tells me not to worry about it, to consider it a warning. It’s my first taste of the privileges granted to all The Blondes of Maplecrest High and I have to admit I could get used to it, no matter how strange the whole thing is.

  SEVEN

  It happened when my dad and I were still living in the city. When I was in third grade and my dad was still a cop. Jason, a boy in my class with on
e lazy eye and no friends at all, sat behind me. He always had a runny nose that he wiped on his sleeve instead of using a tissue. I can remember being terrified every time I heard him sniffle. I was always worried that he’d somehow get snot all over the back of my chair and it used to make me squirm. So one time when he started his disgusting routine of snorting and sniveling, I turned around and wrinkled up my nose at him to let him know he was the grossest creature on the face of the earth.

  We were enemies ever after and he developed more and more disgusting noises to go along with the ones that already upset me. Purposely exaggerating them to get on my nerves and giggling when it caused me to squirm. There was definitely something not right with him and I remember thinking he belonged in the special class at the end of the hall. His eyes always had a faint yellow glow to them like cats’ eyes whenever he looked at me. Planning. Scheming. Waiting for the moment to strike until the time was right.

  During one particular outburst of sneezing, I swore I felt a drop of something wet and slimy touch the back of my neck. I screamed. Yelled out to the teacher without raising my hand that Jason had spread his germs to me. Our other classmates felt the same way about him as I did and took my side, erupting in laughter and forever giving Jason the nickname of Germ Boy.

  The next day, he struck back.

  There was no warning. No series of sniffling or sneezes or snotty throat clearing. He struck in silence. Only the feel of his fingers combing through my hair with a sticky substance that made me freeze. By the time I turned around in my seat, the damage was done.

  My hair didn’t turn with the rest of me. It was stuck to his dirt-stained fingers with something more horrifying than snot. A pink web of chewing gum stretched from his palm to the clumped strands of my curly hair. The streaks of gum growing thinner as he pulled farther until they snapped, dangling like pink plastic hair weaved into my own.

  The horrified faces of my friends confirmed my worst fears as I put my hand up to gauge how bad it really was. All the twisting and fighting I’d done had made it worse and left me with knotted tangles of stiff hair like the twigs of a bird’s nest.

  I didn’t cry until I saw the first snip of my hair falling to the floor in the nurse’s office as she closed the scissors effortlessly in her crooked hand. That’s when I cried. The tears running down my face with each clipping until I thought I’d run out of hair for her to cut because the floor was littered with clumps that looked like furry kittens scattered for a nap.

  When I finally saw my reflection in the medicine cabinet, I was as ugly as a boy.

  I refused to go back to class. I made the nurse call my dad and made him leave work to come pick me up. He did his best to smile when he saw me. Ruffled my hair and told me I was still the prettiest girl in Brooklyn but I could tell by the angry sneer he gave the school nurse that he was as pissed as I was that she hadn’t let a professional hairstylist handle the operation. And I could tell he also wanted to squeeze his hands around Jason’s neck so tightly that his yellow eyes popped out of his head and all the snot oozed out of his sockets.

  I’m not sure why this is the story that pops into my head as I lie on the ground with my eyes closed. Not sure if it’s because I want my dad to come ruffle my hair and tell me it’ll all be all right or if it’s just because I feel the same way I did then. Never wanting to face anyone again. I stayed home from school for a week after that. I didn’t want to leave the house because everyone would think I was a boy. I wore dresses and ribbons for a month until my hair grew out. And as bad as it was, at least there was a way around it. I don’t see my present situation having any such easy solutions.

  “Someone help her up,” Mrs. Donner’s creaky voice says through the fog that clouds my thoughts.

  I hear other voices, too. Closer ones. Kneeling beside me. Slithering voices of the girls whose arms I last saw stretched across the ground to catch me, only to break apart at the last second.

  The palm of one hand closes on the back of my head as I lie facedown. Applying pressure and pushing my face gently until I taste dirt in my mouth. “Better watch yourself,” a voice sneers in my ear, Morgan’s voice, and I can feel her breath against my skin. Warm and angry like a dog with sharp teeth that just wants to growl but letting you know it can bite at any time. “Next time you might find yourself underground instead of on top of it,” she says, smooshing my face harder like she’s trying to bury me alive.

  “Give her room. Step aside,” Mrs. Donner says, getting nearer as I sense the crowding bodies hovering above me starting to move away.

  The throbbing starts the second I open my eyes and see stars in the grass. Green stars smeared with the clear vomit dripping from my chin. I wipe it away with the sleeve of my sweatshirt just like Jason with his nose and the perfect angels of Maplecrest look at me the same way I looked at him.

  “Are you okay?” the two whitewashed circles of Mrs. Donner’s glasses ask me as I blink to get used to the glare of the afternoon sun. The wind is knocked out of me and I cough for air and nod unconvincingly that I’m fine. But she’s already turned her attention to Miranda standing nearby with a hand covering her mouth to hide that she’s giggling along with the other girl who was supposed to catch me. “I’m not laughing,” Mrs. Donner tells them through clenched teeth and they stop immediately.

  The clouds move across the sun and cast a shadow over Miranda as she stands up straighter. “I’m sorry,” she says innocently. “I wasn’t ready. I thought she was going to flip once more.”

  She tilts her head sympathetically toward me and a sugar-and-spice smile parts her lips. But her eyes look hungry, shining through the shadows. The pink skin around them itching with an evil glow. And not just her, but all of them. Standing over me in a circle like vultures waiting to pick my bones. Standing perfectly still with mischievous grins like the ghouls drawn in the pages of Lukas’s comics.

  I get up quickly and brush the dirt from my knees. Blow on my palms streaked with thin red lines of blood from pebble scrapes. The sight of my blood and the grass stains streaked across my face causes Miranda to lick her lips with satisfaction at my defeat.

  “My bad,” she says coldly and the rest of the girls laugh.

  Mrs. Donner rests her hand between my shoulder blades and says, “I think that will be enough.” Tells me she’ll let me know even though it’s clear that I not only didn’t make the squad but took a giant step backward in my social life at the same time, despite that it’s nearly impossible to sink lower in the ranks than I already am. “You sure you’re okay? Do you want to go to the nurse to be sure?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  Visions of gum-strewn hair and sharp scissors flash before me.

  “Okay, but Morgan will go with you to make sure you’re all right,” and she gestures for Morgan to help me back to the locker room.

  Morgan looks as unhappy about it as I do and we both protest, but Mrs. Donner doesn’t listen. Raises her hand to silence us and sends us on our way by clapping her hands to resume practice and orders the remaining girls to get into formation.

  “Well, let’s go, loser,” Morgan groans, throwing her arms out impatiently before turning around and marching off toward the school building. I follow a good five or six steps behind, not wanting to be anywhere near her. Not wanting to hear her ridicule me with a play-by-play of everything I did wrong during the tryout. Wanting only to become invisible so that I never have to face the humiliation that I know is waiting for me day in and day out.

  If I stayed home for a week in third grade because my hair was chopped off, I wonder how long I’ll need to avoid school after this. Falling twelve feet to the ground and vomiting on impact in front of the girls who have the power to embarrass me with it forever? That should be good for a year off. A few months at the very least.

  I should have listened to Lukas after all. I should have stayed away. It was an idiotic idea. But I guess it’s always easier to say that after I’ve made a huge mistake. It always seems so
simple afterward. By then there’s nothing left to do but give in to the swollen feeling in the back of my throat and let the tears run quietly down my face.

  I’m glad the lights haven’t yet come on inside the locker room. The autumn sun has already dipped below the hills and only the softest orange glow seeps in from the small windows near the ceiling. In the dim light, Morgan can’t see me feeling sorry for myself. Even if she can sense it, even if she does try to rub it in, at least I can take comfort knowing she can’t actually see how much it hurts.

  “I can’t believe you even dared to try out,” she says from the far corner of the room as I open the locker and take my things out. I can see her out of the corner of my eye, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her head tilted back. One leg bent at the knee and one foot resting against the cinder blocks. Acting as superior as she can and I can’t stand her and everyone like her.

  “I can’t believe Lukas said you used to be nice,” I mumble as I pull my hair into a wool hat to hide the sick matting it down.

  Morgan pushes herself away from the wall and sprints toward me. I brace myself thinking for a second she’s going to attack me, but she stops a few inches in front of me with her hands squeezed so tightly that the blood rushes out and leaves her fingers as white as the bleached tiles in the showers lining the wall behind her.

  “Your freak boyfriend doesn’t know anything,” she says. Her eyes, fierce like a tiger’s, wanting to rip me into little pieces.

  “He’s not my boyfriend . . . Alison,” I sneer, no longer afraid to stand up to her because I no longer have anything to lose. No need to play it safe anymore because they already hate me. No chance of that changing. Not now. So I might as well play as mean as they do.

  “Alison is dead,” Morgan barks. Something dangerous in her words. In the way she shows her teeth when she leans closer to me. Her hands slowly coming up like she’s going to strangle me and I can’t even bring myself to scream. “You might even get to meet her soon enough,” she threatens and my legs unlock as I stumble backward, falling over the bench behind me and landing with my head clanging against the metal lockers.